Genetic transformation can be used to engineer plants with altered characteristics by introducing heterologous nucleic acid molecules into plant genomes. Such altered plants may have a variety of applications. Genetically engineered plants may be used in a traditional plant breeding to generate improved crops or as lignocellulosic biomass for the production of biofuels, chemicals, and bioproducts, or as factories to produce pharmaceuticals. The prerequisite for genetic engineering of plants is creation of a reliable transformation and expression systems for introduction of heterologous nucleic acid molecules.